Applying for Admission to CS 190

Enrollment in CS 190 will be limited to 18 students and requires permission of the instructor. If you wish to take the class, you must submit an application by email to John Ousterhout (ouster@cs) by Monday, November 25, 2019, at 11:59 P.M. Admissions decisions will be announced by Monday, December 2. Applications received after November 26 will be considered only if there are unfilled places in the class.

Your application should consist of a single email message containing a copy of your transcript and answers to the following questions:

  1. What program are you in and when do you expect to graduate? If you are a coterm student, list both your expected BS and MS graduation dates.
  2. Outside of course work, what significant programming experiences have you had, if any? Describe up to three such experiences with a single sentence each, including the nature of the system, your role, and the language(s) you used.
  3. What programming languages are you comfortable with?
  4. In your opinion, what are the most important things that distinguish well-designed code from poorly-designed code? Note: focus on qualities of the code, not the features that it implements (e.g. "usability" is a good property for applications, but it doesn't say much about the code).
  5. Why do you want to take this class?
  6. What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now?
  7. Is there someone else applying for the class that you would like to work with as partner (all projects will be done in teams of 2)? If so, please identify that person; where practical, I'll try to admit both members of a team. Naming a partner will neither help nor hurt your chances of admission.
  8. If you have not taken CS 140 at Stanford but have taken an equivalent class elsewhere, provide a brief description of that class (did it have a significant implementation project?) and include your grade for the class.

Keep your answers short and to the point; focus on what is most important. All of your answers should fit in no more than 400 words.

CS 140 is an important prerequisite for this class (it ensures that you have done some fairly heavy-duty programming). I am unlikely to admit people who haven't taken CS 140 unless there are unfilled slots in the class. In addition, graduating seniors will receive priority for admission.